Elliott happy with 'major step in the right direction'

Chase Elliott says he didn't have anything for race winner Martin Truex Jr., but his No. 24 team showed improvement at Chicagoland Speedway.

"From where we've been to where we ran today was a major, major step in the right direction, frankly where we need to be, where we deserve to be, to the potential we can run," Elliott said after a second-place finish.

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"It was nice to see that we can do it if all things are clicking in the right way, car is driving good, pit stops are good, race execution was nice. It was pretty uneventful race for the most part."

The initial start was certainly exciting for Elliott fans. Starting on the outside row in eighth place, Elliott jumped to the third lane and was inside the top five by the end of the first lap. Elliott would go on to lead two different times throughout the race for a total of 42 laps. His average running position for the 267-lap event was an impressive 2.73.

"If you could get in front of him on a restart or something, sure, I think you could stay there for eight, 10 laps," Elliott said when asked if he would have had a chance at beating Truex if the race had a short run at the end. "But I wasn't going to fall in line behind him after a restart and pass him in eight laps without something lucky happening for me."

Eligible for the championship, Elliott backed up his September 2016 performance at Chicago when he finished third. It also came with a little bit of déjà vu. After another slow end to the summer where Elliott earned two top-10 finishes in the last five weeks, he and crew chief Alan Gustafson showed up for the first Playoffs race with a car ready to fight for the title.

The mile-and-a-half program has been one of Elliott's strong suits since moving to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. However, he was quick to point out that what happened last year at Chicago – was last year.

"A lot of things change from year to year. We haven't run as good through the summer months as we did last year," he said. "I did feel like we peaked about this time last year. But this isn't last year, so it really doesn't matter.

"This is this year. We need to be better than what we've been in the past. I thought that was an improvement today. Obviously, have some work to do to get that bunch [Furniture Row Racing] that won the race. Aside from them, I think we were competitive to the rest of the field."

By winning Stage 2 of Sunday's race (his third stage win of the year), Elliott improved his playoff point total to seven.